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She finished taking the beacon home.
America’s last Coast Guard lighthouse keeper has ended his watch at the historic Boston Lighthouse after 20 years in command.
Sally Snowman, 72, became a lighthouse keeper in 2003 and said it was a lifelong dream come true ever since she first saw the lighthouse when she was just 10 years old.
“There was a connection, an instant connection. As a 10-year-old I had no idea what that connection was, but it just hit home. And to this day, it’s there. It’s still there. Yo” she told the Daily Mail Ahead of his final day as a keeper on Saturday.
She is the 70th person to serve as lighthouse keeper in the Boston Lighthouse’s more than 300-year history, and the first woman to hold that position.
The lighthouse, opened in 1716, blown up by the British in 1776, and rebuilt in 1783, guided sailors safely through the treacherous waters of Boston Harbor from the small, rocky Little Brewster Island. He gave it to me.
Boston Wright’s first impressions of Snowman during her childhood visit to the island would serve as inspiration for the rest of her life.
“In my heart, Boston Lights is my home” Snowman told CBS News Early this month. “I approached it like a fish out of water.”
“I went down to the beach and looked up at the lights and said, ‘Dad, I want to get married here when I grow up.’ And we got married in 1994!” she added.
She and her husband also wrote a book about lighthouses. That allowed her to serve as the Boston Lighthouse’s first civilian manager since 1941, after the Coast Guard civilianized the lighthouse to free up its personnel after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I did.
Snowman told CBS he has lived on the remote island for six months for the past 20 years. She said she spent several weeks alone, but was with her husband on the weekends.
Her job at the automated lighthouse included keeping it clean, checking on the mechanical equipment, and enjoying the surrounding natural beauty.
“Every window has a view. Even when I’m showering in the bathroom, I can see Graves Light,” Snowman said of another lighthouse to the northeast.
The first Boston Light structure was a 60-foot tower built in 1716 and was lit by candles.according to the National Park Service.. During British occupation during the Revolutionary War, it suffered repeated fires at the hands of American troops, but was blown up in 1776 by British troops fleeing Boston.
The current 75-foot-tall structure was completed in 1783 and was lit by four fish oil lamps. It was raised to a height of 89 feet in 1859 and electrified in 1948, shining its light 44 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Boston Light was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
As the Coast Guard was preparing to automate lights and remove personnel from Little Brewster in 1989, the U.S. Senate passed legislation requiring a permanent presence at Boston Lighthouse, which will remain in the country, according to the NPS. It was the only manned lighthouse.
The law also required Little Brewster to be made accessible to the public, which it did in 1999.
The lighthouse became the nation’s last automated lighthouse in 1989, allowing it to stay lit all the time and “eliminating the need for managers to climb the stairs twice a day,” according to the NPS.
When the lighthouse failed a safety inspection in 2018, the snowman was restricted to daytime maintenance trips only, CBS reported. She now spends much of her time at the Lifesaving Museum in Hull, where she dresses in 19th century costume and keeps a close eye on her beloved lighthouse.
Ownership of the lighthouse is transferred through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 to an organization or charity that maintains this landmark.
Snowman said it will be hard to say goodbye, but he hopes to continue volunteering as a tour guide at Little Brewster and being a historian.
“…I thought it would be a short period of time, but it’s been 20 years. So I let it go, but how do you let it all go? It’s about letting your kids grow up and go to college and start a new chapter. , so this is a new chapter for Boston Light,” she told the Daily Mail.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what January 1st will be like. But the other part is that it doesn’t feel like it’s really over.”
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